Liberating the Educators: Recent Episodes
Walter Bowne
As an educator with over twenty years of experience, both as a high school English teacher and as college adjunct, I have seen first hand the dismantling of public education from various forces. To paraphrase Allen Ginsberg, "I have seen the best minds of my fellow educators destroyed by apathy, depression, indifference, incompetence, neglect, and overwork." This podcast will focus on those forces. Hopefully, it will inspire genuine educators around the world to resist such forces and to make changes to education that will make a lasting impact on our students, our profession, and our world. Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/walter-bowne/support
In a survey of educators that I conducted across the United States, with over 4,000 respondents, only 18.8% felt their voice was heard with the administration or the union. When using the sample size of 2,400 from New Jersey, that number falls to 11%. Why is this the case? Why do so many teachers feel this way? What can be done? Has there ever been a time when the voices of teachers were heard?
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This was first published in The Courier Post in 2014. I talk about how families can save money while also nurturing talent and hobbies by not wasting time and money at SAT prep centers.
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The point of school is to get a well-rounded education. But education occurs every second of the day—and if those seconds are sold to the devil of quiet desperation, all is lost.
First published in the National Education Association magazine, May 2009.
http://www.nea.org/archive/31503.htm
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There are 1,035,877 words in the English language. Most vocabulary books have 20 units of 20 words each. That’s only 400 words per year. For 12 years of schooling, that’s only 4,800 words, or a tiny fraction of all the words in English.
First published in The Courier Post. Dec 1, 2016. https://www.courierpostonline.com/story/opinion/readers/2016/12/01/94239438/
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In the professional world, students will not be filling in bubbles or trying to spit back the accepted “correct” answer. Imagine Galileo answering a test devised by the Catholic Church. I gauge how comfortable students are with the material and with themselves. I can generally tell a student who has read and who has skimmed the Sparknotes.
First published in The Courier Post on August 20, 2016. https://www.courierpostonline.com/story/opinion/columnists/2016/08/20/commentary-preparing-students-professional-world/88968144/
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It’s essential to support a New Jersey bill, co-sponsored by Assemblywoman Gail Phoebus (R-Sussex) and Assemblyman Troy Singleton (D-Burlington), that would protect students and advisers from administrative censorship. It would “prohibit school districts and public universities from authorizing prior restraint of school-sponsored media.” First published on NJ Spotlight, Feb 14, 2017.
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This is a problem no politician or bureaucrat or corporatized educator has solved, mostly because they do not inhabit classrooms. Dictums like “Do it, and do it well, because we said so” only seem to work in countries where the punishment is banishment, imprisonment, or death.
First published on NJ Spotlight on May 7, 2015.
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Walter Bowne, the advisor of the award-winning school newspaper, The Voyager, discusses how to get students to engage in politics in a civil manner. YouTube version is also available on WalterBowne.
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Neither a punishment nor a cruel exercise, writing is a path to knowledge. I often tell my students that I don’t know what I think until I read what I write. It’s a personal journey that can become public, allowing readers to walk and learn with you.
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Nothing makes a teacher happier than a hand-written note from a former student, right? Well, when I think back on an entire town I have taught, I don't recall the grades of students. I don't even recall the grades I received in school and in college. All I recall is the teacher, the stories from the tacher, and the teachers that seemed to care about the light inside of me. Here is an essay that was published in the NJEA about genuine teaching, and about taking care of our own souls as teachers. We must not burn out or become depressed, at least not without a fight. So let's put all those letters in our classrooms.
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In this essay, first published in The Philadelphia Inquirer, I argue that standardized tests can't measure great writing.
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Let's get beyond the buzz of that overused word in education, and create genuine rigor.
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Walter Bowne teaches high school English and journalism. He also is a writer who has been frequently published in newspapers and magazines on educational topics. Walter Bowne looks to reform education on several fronts.
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